All roads lead to Adelaide

Location, location, location: Once ASC was named as the builder of the Navy's new Air Warfare Destroyers, everything else started clicking into place for the investment-hungry SA Government.
The centre of gravity of the Navy's Air Warfare Destroyer project has shifted irrevocably to South Australia with recent announcements that the AWD Systems Centre will be headquartered there, as will the Australian head office of preferred ship designer Gibbs & Cox.

At the Pacific 2006 Conference and Expo in Sydney in February, South Australia's Treasurer Kevin Foley announced the SA government would stand by its commitment to develop much of the necessary infrastructure for the AWD project. He unveiled Techport Australia, a 95 hectare, $140 million maritime engineering complex centred on the current ASC yard at Osborne.

Former defence minister Senator Robert Hill announced in November that the AWD Systems centre would be established in Adelaide to manage the design schedule, budgets and work breakdown structures of the $6 billion AWD project.

"The advantage of basing the centre in Adelaide is the proximity to the shipbuilder ASC and also to DSTO, which is providing the key systems integration laboratories," Senator Hill said.

"The AWD Systems Centre is expected to cost approximately $30 million, with the State Government offering an assistance package of more than $10 million. The new jobs to be created will be high-end skilled positions - primarily naval architects, engineers and project managers with skills in warship design and systems integration.

However, the AWD Systems Centre will also have nodes interstate to enable specific tasks to be carried out most economically and productively. The principal nodes will be in Sydney where Raytheon had already begun some of the combat system design activities in mid-2005, and in Melbourne where much of the platform design work will be done.

The Director General, Engineering, for the AWD project, CDRE Andrew Cawley, shifted to Adelaide in late-2005 to set up the AWD Systems Centre at the former JP Morgan building in Adelaide's north-east suburbs. The centre will include representatives from the Alliance partners - the Commonwealth, the shipbuilder ASC, the systems integrator Raytheon and the ship designer Gibbs & Cox. It is also expected to include Lockheed Martin and the US Navy in support of the Aegis Combat System. It could even include Spanish firm Navantia, whose F-100 designed is the Military Off the Shelf alternative to preferred platform designer Gibbs & Cox's evolved DDG-51.

Gibbs & Cox has created a new subsidiary, Gibbs & Cox (Australia) Pty Limited (GCA), to be located in Adelaide. The new company will be headed by former DMO Industry Division head Peter Croser, himself a former managing director of CEA Technologies Pty Ltd in Canberra. He told ADM that he has a team already working within the AWD Systems Centre, where Defence's ambition is to establish a centre of excellence for naval design, but the company will also establish its own separate corporate headquarters in Adelaide.

Gibbs & Cox's chairman and CEO, Kevin Moak, told ADM at Pacific 2006 that GCA will eventually employ around 100 people and, even if Navantia's off the shelf F100 destroyer design is finally selected, there are enough potential post-AWD opportunities to keep the company is Australia.

"We're here for the long term," he told ADM. "GCA is our centre of design leadership on the AWD Program, and a major engineering and design location for our corporation. We are immediately locating senior AWD engineering and design staff in GCA, and it is our plan to grow the technical staff to approximately 100 people over the next two years."

South Australian Treasurer Kevin Foley said, "We are pleased that Gibbs & Cox has selected Adelaide as their location for GCA in Australia. This will provide new opportunities for the South Australian defence community to grow and diversify its high ended skills and capabilities."

As part of South Australia's AWD-assisted industrial makeover the State government used Pacific 2006 to launch the next phase of its bid to become the centre of an internationally competitive shipbuilding industry - for both naval and commercial purposes.

The planned 95 hectare site at Osborne, adjacent to Port Adelaide, where the new air warfare destroyers are to be built will be known as Techport Australia.

"Techport Australia will be key to developing South Australia as the future premier shipbuilding hub of the southern hemisphere," SA Premier Mike Rann said. "It is a new public commercial entity set up by the SA Government to oversee the development of the Osborne site - and to bring in as much new business as possible.

Techport Australia will be owned by the newly-formed Port Adelaide Maritime Corporation and will be run by Andrew Fletcher, the former CE in charge of the Alice to Darwin railway construction.

"Techport Australia... into which the State Government is investing $140 million in infrastructure, will be capable of building other ships at the same time that the air warfare destroyers are being built," Rann said. "While the AWD contract was the single largest defence contract in Australian history it doesn't mean we should limit ourselves to these three ships"

Kevin Foley said the SA Government has a vision to go after as many other shipbuilding contracts as it can and Techport Australia will be the best vehicle to achieve that aim.

"We are in the fortunate position of being able to develop a new 30 hectare greenfields shipbuilding site with the opportunity to expand to 95 hectares in total," he said. "This will build on the established presence of the ASC which has a 25 year, $3.5 billion through-life support contract for the Collins Class submarine fleet."

Techport Australia's layout and industrial zoning will suit companies in civil or military shipbuilding, ship repair and maintenance, metal fabrication and module construction, paint and blast, warehousing and component manufacturers and suppliers, according to Foley, who described Techport Australia as the future location of one of the most sophisticated and well-serviced shipbuilding hubs in the world: "It has been master planned to accommodate the present and future needs of businesses of all sizes and fields."

The Techport hub will be capable of supporting several concurrent shipbuilding programs with:

? a fully protected harbour,

? deep channel port access,

? Australia's largest ship lift,

? common user wharf and transfer system,

? master planned industrial estate,

? freehold and leasehold industrial sites,

? onsite training centre and

? access to serviced offices, cafes and IT facilities.

All tenants will also enjoy unfettered access to critical transport and communication infrastructure:

? heavy/wide load road access,

? direct rail spur access connected to the national rail network,

? access to a major international container terminal supporting panamax-sized vessels and

? research-grade data transmission infrastructure.

Land at Techport Australia will be released for sale or lease in the second half of this year, Foley said.

By Gregor Ferguson, Adelaide